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Why Europe? on Comparative Long-Term Growth

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Why Europe? on Comparative Long-Term Growth The European Journal of Comparative Economics Vol. 6, n. 2, pp. 287-323 ISSN 1722-4667 Why Europe? On comparative long-term growth Hans-Jürgen Wagener 1 2 Abstract Four historical macro phenomena of development ask for an explanation: the slow increase of welfare in Western Europe from the Middle Ages up to the publication of the Wealth of Nations, rapid modern economic growth in Europe and its transoceanic ofshoots following the industrial revolution, the lagging behind of the Asiatic areas India, China, and Japan, and the succession of economic leadership from Italy via the Low Countries and the United Kingdom to the US. The paper deals with these problems on three levels. On the first level of proper economic analysis the process of material growth is approached. On a second level, the level of institutional economics, the social framework is introduced. The third level is the field of the political economy of institutional change. Classical and neo-classical economic theory and institutional political economy offer a number of plausible explanatory causes. Next to the classical division of labour and accumulation, technical progress and human capital play a decisive role. It is shown that the emergence of an impartially operating system of law and a polity which supports it make possible the unfolding of such material conditions for growth. The institutional factors, in turn, are furthered by the development of autonomous and self-responsible individuals and competition between them and between independent political systems. Finally, a general attitude favouring the search for new ideas together with a positive attitude towards progress and risk contribute to the great divergence. JEL Classification: N1, O1, P1 Keywords: Comparative Economic History, Growth, Development, Comparative Economic Systems, Institutions 1. Introduction In the second half of the 20th century the world was divided into three parts. The First World comprised industrialised Western Europe with its transatlantic offshoots in North America, Australia, and New Zealand with the later addition of Japan. The Second World was communist and tried to catch up with the West with dubitable success. And the remainder, the Third World, was less developed and remained poor enjoying only a tiny fraction of the Western standard of living. In East Asia the Second and the Third World overlapped. It is rather astonishing how long the economics profession remained unconcerned about this state of affairs.3 After all, all societies started their development from more or less the same (subsistence) level: How did such an extreme divergence become possible? And what was to be done to close the huge gap? Since the 1950s, since Nurkse, Prebisch, Hirschman, Myrdal, the economics of development saw great advances. It concentrated its efforts, quite understandably, on economic policy to find suitable strategies of development (Thorbecke 2006). Only quite recently the historical problem came to the fore: how was Europe able to raise its wealth so high above 1 The author thanks Theresia Theurl, Alexander Nützenadel, Hans Nutzinger, Wolfram Schrettl, Stefan Voigt and two anonymous referees for valuable comments and improvements. 2 Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) 3 Not so surprising on closer inspection: “The economic and social development of the Third World, as such, was clearly not a policy objective of the colonial rulers before the Second World War” (Thorbecke 2006:1). Available online at http://eaces.liuc.it 288 EJCE, vol. 6, n. 2 (2009) subsistence and why did other advanced civilisations like China and India stay behind, starting to catch up only recently? These questions will be dealt with in this paper. The answer, evidently, will have to start from the analysis of the historical perspective of economic growth. Growth theory identifies relevant phenomena like division of labour, trade, structural change, population growth, accumulation, and innovation that are believed to be linked causally to welfare growth. However, it is exactly these phenomena that we mean when speaking of growth and development. They are the outward appearance of economic growth. So we have to ask what gets these phenomena moving. The answer seems trivial: the decisions of economic agents. But they are not taken in a vacuum: they are embedded in a social, cultural, and institutional framework. Things get complex, and to identify the major moving forces in this dynamic system is the task of theory.4 On a first level of proper economic analysis we deal with the process of material growth. On a second level, the level of institutional economics, the social framework is introduced that supports or hinders decision making with respect to growth. The influence of institutions on economic development has been proved in numerous studies (see Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinson 2005a). It is typical of most of these that they do not take long-term growth but rather short-term growth or cross-section welfare differences as explananda. One of the reasons is the data that rarely allow for a different approach. Our question, however, is about the long run. Hence we will have to cope with quite a precarious data situation. The long-run approach allows, on the other hand, to ask what determines the historical pattern development of institutions, since many of those are the result of processes reaching far into the past. This third level is the field of the political economy of institutional change. These three levels will have to be dealt with in some more detail. There is still a fourth level of analysis that will be repeatedly referred to, but will not systematically be treated. For we know even less about it than about the factors on the second and third levels. What is meant is the level of attitudes, mental models, and cultural conditioning. Such phenomena are not only long-term in character, but may also have a rather short-term impact like economic knowledge. Take, for example, the mentioned economics of development. In the 1950s and 1969s it was the accepted knowledge that public development planning, import substitution, the construction of heavy industry will accelerate the process of catching-up. Such was the state of the art at the time. In the 1970s and 1980s the mainstream changed its mind: the market moved to centre stage and with it comparative cost. The resulting economic policies could not be more different (see Thorbecke 2006; Lin 2007). In short, the minds of economic subjects are moulded by quite different models which thus influence directly decision making and its success. The paper is structured quite simply, following this three level scheme. Under the heading “theory of growth and development” divergence and convergence of 4 I do not believe, however, that answering the question in the title we will succeed in fullfilling Lucas’ ideal: I prefer to use the term 'theory' in a very narrow sense, to refer to an explicit dynamic system, something that can be put on a computer and run. This is what I mean by the 'mechanics' of economic development - the construction of a mechanical, artificial world, populated by the interacting robots that economics typically studies, that is capable of exhibiting behavior the gross features of which resemble those of the actual world (Lucas 1988: 5). Rather will we be content to identify relevant factors which allow to construct a descriptive theoretical frame. History will provide the facts. Available online at http://eaces.liuc.it Hans-Jürgen Wagener, Why Europe? On comparative long-term growth 289 welfare will be discussed from the point of view of material growth, from the institutional angle, and from the perspective of the factors influencing policy change. It makes sense to separate classical and neo-classical theories although both face similar phenomena. We will try to separate clearly the three levels of material economic, institutional, and political-economic analysis. Classical growth theory has done so less explicitly than neo-classical theory which sticks mainly to the first level. The result of the discussion will allow us to broach the question in the title: why Europe? To start with, however, it is necessary to clarify the facts. Even if exact quantification of differences in development is troubled by methodological obstacles, we may speak of stylised facts as far as the present time and recent past is concerned. The more we have to go back in time (and our question will lead us there), the more opaque the data will be and the less consensus can be expected regarding the facts. These will no longer be stylised facts, but rather stylised conjectures. 2. Stylised facts or stylised conjectures Economic welfare is usually measured by aggregate output data – the productivity of a society or GDP per capita. Although serious objections have been aired, we will stick to the convention. Comparing aggregate output data that have been corrected for differences in purchasing power does not lead to an unequivocal result. For we are comparing incommensurable magnitudes. The aggregate consists of mostly heterogeneous elements, and the price vector by which they are valued will be structured differently from country to country. The greater the differences in consumer habits, culture, and development, the greater will be potential discrepancies resulting from the index number problem and heterogeneity of preferences and goods.5 In addition there are the usual data problems connected with determining representative baskets of commodities and representative prices. How significant the differences can be when comparing the most recent and, hence, probably most reliable data is shown by the following table. Table 1 - GDP per capita at PPP in a uniform currency Maddison 2003 ICP 2005 Country International $ of 1990 USA = 100 US $ of 2005 USA = 100 USA 29 037 100.0 41 674 100.0 China 4 803 16.5 4 091 9.8 India 2 160 7.4 2 126 5.1 Japan 21 218 73.1 30 290 72.7 Germany 19 144 65.9 30 496 73.2 France 21 861 75.3 29 644 71.1 Italy 19 151 66.0 27 750 66.6 UK 21 310 73.4 31 580 75.8 Spain 17 021 58.6 27 270 65.4 Sources: Maddison (2007: 382); ICP (2007) 5 This is not the place to treat the microfoundation of comparing macro data and index number theory.
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